


Do The Gods Give Refunds?

by galaxy_of_words



Category: Homestuck
Genre: I certainly dont, Jane would literally prefer any other god as her patron, Multi, Trolls are Gods, who knows - Freeform, who thought making teenagers gods was a good idea, will romance occur?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 21:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4153158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxy_of_words/pseuds/galaxy_of_words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane Crocker thinks the gods either hate her or have a sick sense of humor. Why else would she be blessed by He Who Is Of Rage?</p><p>After her dad mysteriously goes missing after an incident involving the cult of the mirthful Jane decides that’s the last straw. The gods think it's funny to have her be blessed by Rage? Well the jokes on them because one way or another she is changing her patron, even if that involves going to the gods themselves.</p><p>Or: In A World Where The Earth Is Ruled By Twelve Gods Who Occasionally Decide To Become Patrons To Mortals, A Girl Blessed By The God Of Rage Goes On A Quest To Change Her Patron God And Save Her Father. Contains Twelve Inept Teen Gods, Over A Dozen Instances Of Blasphemy, One Quest Disguised As A Road Trip, Eight Blessed Teens, Multiple Sacrilegious Relationships Between Mortals And Gods, And One Crazed Cult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blessed Since Birth

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone and their mother has done a trolls as gods AU but screw it I'm gonna do one too. More characters will be added and relationships as well. First time in a while doing a chaptered fic, this is going to be interesting.

James Crocker sits and waits. The waiting room is quiet, the only sounds being of people shifting in their seats and the occasional murmured prayer. James himself is tempted to join them. He has been waiting for far too long. In an attempt to distract himself he directs his eyes toward the intricate stained glass window covering most of the wall.

Staring down at the room from empty eyes stand the glass portraits of She Who Is Life and He Who Is Blood. Similar windows and murals are found in every hospital. James heard that the one in New York is over thirty feet tall and that the gods themselves posed for it but he highly doubts there is any truth to that. Light shines through the window painting the floor with an array of colors. The figures stand in their traditional poses, Life has her hands out to her side, palms facing forward as if ready to heal. Blood has one hand out like Life but his other hand is clenched over his heart.

There is another window downstairs, slightly hidden that shows two figures. James doesn’t plan to visit that one. He has already paid his respects to Time and Doom thirty-six hours ago after hearing the news about his wife and his prayers would be of better use to the living, specifically for those who can help his newborn daughter.

He averts his eyes from the window and bows his head to pray. The prayers of his childhood won’t come to his mind and instead he just keeps of a mantra of ‘please’ directed to Life or Blood or anyone listening. Twenty minutes later he is practically shaking hand clasped so tight he is beginning to loose feeling when the nurse calls him.

“Mr. Crocker?” He leaps to his feet to quickly and almost looses his balance and falls back down into his seat.

“Yes?” He responds quickly searching the man’s face for any expression that could reveal the status of his child. The nurse smiles at him, and James feels his entire body relax.

“You daughter is stable and in healthy condition. Would you like to see her?”

James nods before remember the manners his mother worked so hard to instill him. “Yes I would love to, thank you.”

He is led to a hospital crib and inside of it a small figure looking curiously up with grey blue eyes. James can’t help but look down at her with complete awe. She’s still a little wrinkly looking but she has a full head of black hair that he already knows will be an uncontrollable mess as she grows up.

“Would you like to hold her?” The nurse asks and James once again finds himself speechless and simply nods ignoring the tears prickling at the corner of his eyes. The nurse places the baby in his arms and all James can think is that she is so small. The nurse is saying things about her being a healthy weight and size but she still feels incredibly small and fragile in his arms. There is no ignoring his tears now as they leave warm trails down his cheeks.

He holds her as long as he can before relinquishing her to the nurse again. Letting her go hurts more than he expected but he forces himself to do so.

“So have you chosen a name?” The nurse asks as they make their way over to the front desk to fill out paperwork. The baby will have to stay at the hospital another night under observation but then he can take his daughter home. (His wife should be coming home with them a sad and bitter part of his whispers in his mind but the gods have their reasons and who is he to question the creators).

“Jane her name is Jane,” He tells the other man. He and his wife had picked it out weeks ago.

“That’s a nice name,” the nurse says with a grin. “You know she didn’t cry? The other nurses and I were thinking she might be blessed.”

James doesn’t let himself show how hopeful he grows at those words. To be blessed is a rare thing; maybe one in 5,000 people are so lucky. To be blessed is to have a patron god, someone protecting them. He won’t know if she’s blessed for certain until her 13th birthday as is tradition but still the idea that his little girl might have a god looking over her is a pleasing thought.

“They can’t agree on who though. “ The nurse continues. “We have one nurse blessed of Life and she swears that little Jane is too. Personally I think she’s right but who knows?”

James only nods, barely listening as his mind floods with thoughts and emotions. The new father spends the next hours in a haze. He has a daughter. Jane Crocker. He has a beautiful baby girl and she seems to be blessed. For the second time that day he cries tears of joy.

***

Jane is seven the first time she meets a blessed person.

Her first grade teacher is a cheerful woman who is very patient when teaching spelling and who makes the best silly voices when she reads to her class. Jane thinks she’s just about the smartest and kindest person on earth (after Jane’s dad that is!) and most of the class agrees. One day Jane is coloring during free time when she hears her classmate ask Ms. Casey about the necklace she wears everyday.

“Oh this? It’s the symbol of my patron.”

“What does ‘patron’ mean?” the student asks.

Jane stops coloring. She’s heard that word before, normally mixed in with the word “blessed” or “disciple”. Whenever someone brings it up her dad always smiles real big at Jane and she hasn’t quite figured out why. She hopes that Ms. Casey might be able to explain why.

“Well sometimes the gods pick special people. And they watch over those people and bless them throughout their lives.” The teacher smile as she explains, and Jane can’t help but notice that she looks so joyful. As if being blessed is the best possible thing one can be.

“When those people get older they can choose to become disciples of that god and work in the temples for them.” She continues. “Of course they aren’t forced to, they can also get normal jobs.” By now most of the class has stopped whatever they were doing and are listening to their teachers every word.

“Now most people like to wear something with their god’s symbol on it. I wear this necklace. Now can anyone tell me which symbol this is?" Jane raises her hand to answer but before she can say anything another girl blurts it our.

“It’s the mind symbol!”

“Very good!”

Jane is a little upset the other girl beat her to the punch. They learned god symbols last week and while Jane sometimes gets confused between void and space she knows what mind looks like.

The rest of the day the students can’t concentrate on anything but being blessed. They all loudly speculate who their patron would be if they were blessed. A group of girls claim light is the coolest while a boy in her class loudly argues that breath is because breath flies. Privately Jane decided that it would be the best to be blessed by either life or space. Then her thoughts are interrupted by one girl that insists that her uncle it blessed by void AND time and Jane gets caught up in the argument that that’s not possible and Amanda in just a big liar mc liar pants.

***

Jane doesn’t think about patrons seriously until she’s in seventh grade. Sure she has had some conversations with her friends about how cool it would be to have heart as a patron and how Leah’s brother’s girlfriend’s best friends’ cousin was leaving home to become a disciple of doom because he had an actual visitation by doom himself. But Jane doesn’t think about it seriously.

It’s a Wednesday in February and Jane is walking to her dad’s car parked across the parking lot when it happens. One of the student’s older sibling who only just got their license isn’t paying attention and Jane’s boxed in by parked cars and there is absolutely no way she can get out of the way before she ends up crushed. She hears a student scream and closes her eyes because she can’t watch her own approaching death.

And then nothing happens. She hears the clash of metal on metal but she feels no searing pain.

When she opens her eyes she’s on the sidewalk in front of the school, a good one hundred feet from where she just was. For a moment she thinks she just imagined the whole thing, but the car is still there, crashed against the parked cars she had been standing in between and she notices dozens of eyes on her. She’s shaking scared and starting to cry when her dad leaps from his car and wraps her in a tight hug whispering reassuring messaged into her hair as whispers and murmurs fill the air.

It isn’t until she gets home that her dad explains what’s going on. Apparently she’s blessed. He claims he’s always suspected but no one can deny it now. It’s just a matter of who and with her thirteenth birthday approaching she’ll know soon enough.

Jane is still shaken from her brush with death but mixed with that is excitement. She’s blessed! Her plain Jane Crocker of all people has a patron. She doesn’t sleep that night, instead she lays awake in bed thinking about all the possibilities for her patron.

The excitement of having a patron wears off pretty quickly. It’s not that the idea itself is a bad one but the second she was at school the morning after the accident she is bombarded with questions and attention. Everyone wants to know what happened and if she really is blessed and who her patron is. Its gets tiring real quickly and despite her hope that the hype will die down it lasts until her birthday.

***

On her thirteenth birthday Jane and her dad travel to the Serenity temple. There are many temples scattered all over some incredibly magnificent but Serenity is the largest temple that is dedicated the all twelve rather than only one or two. Because of this, The Serenity temple is where naming ceremonies have been held for over 700 years.

Naming ceremonies used to be a big deal. At one point it was custom to not name your child until their thirteenth birthday and then to name them officially in the temple under the eyes of all the gods. Eventually people realized that this was stupid and only super fundamentalists didn’t name their kids. In the modern age the naming ceremony was mostly symbolic for those who already had names. It was mostly a coming of age for rich kids or it was where a blessed child could find their patron.

And so Jane Crocker stands in the center of a circular room wearing her best dress surrounded by twelve stained glass windows portraying the twelve gods. The temple attendant had made her father stay outside and left Jane alone in the room with no directions and only the information that ‘she’ll know when it happens’. Jane was starting to get rather bored. She had walked in at 4 o’clock as directed and had been standing for almost ten minutes in one place. She began to shift her weight from foot to foot wondering if everyone had been wrong and that she had no patron at all when she feels it.

A sharp pain in her head, enough to bring her to her knees and her vision of the room is gone. Only darkness and flashing of purple and bones and laughter so overwhelming that she is only vaguely aware of tears streaming down her face and a scream that may have been her own. The pain fells like it’s tearing her apart and she shakes as she sobs the images still flickering through her head until quick as it had started it stops.

She opens her eyes and finds herself staring at the polished black marble floor. Still trying to choke back her sobs she hears the door open and two sets of footsteps entering the room. When Jane finally manages to look up the smiling temple assistant is crouching down to her level and her fathering is standing behind her.

“Alright sweetie,” the young woman says kindly. “There should be a mark on your right wrist. It’ll stay there for a while but it will fade after about a week,” she explains.

Jane becomes conscious of her wrist. It was burning a moment ago but not with heat, more like the sharp feeling of holding ice cubes to one’s skin. Slowly and deliberately Jane flips over her right arm to reveal her wrist.

For a second there is silence. Not a peaceful kind but the heavy kind. The sort of silence that comes after phrases like “will not recover” and “sorry for your loss.”

It is the young attendant that breaks the silence. “Oh, that’s certainly different.”

Jane feels herself start to shake once more. There on her wrist, still cool to the touch, swirling lines almost create the shape of a face in deep dark purple. Jane feels like she’s going to be sick, even more so when the attendant finally moves out of sight allowing Jane to the see what’s in front of her.

When Jane had first entered she had been facing the image of Time, as was tradition. But during the ceremony she must have moved because now as she looks up at the murals on the wall, the smiling face of Rage looks back.

“Under the eyes of the Twelve and by the hand of He Who is Rage I name you Jane Crocker.” The attendant says finishing off the ceremony.

Jane can just barely hear the woman’s words over the sound of her world crashing down upon her.


	2. Denial Is A Perfectly Reasonable Course Of Action

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything seems kind of awful but at least Jane makes a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow two chapters in two days! I normally will not update this quick but hey when you're on a roll you're on a roll. Some more backstory for the gods and also Jane makes a friend. Next chapter will feature another time skip as well as start the *plot* part of this story. I don't know if it was clear in the last chapter but this is a modern world where most things are the same except troll gods.

The problem, Jane muses as she and her father drive back home, is this: He Who Is Rage doesn’t bless. At least not anymore. History and old stories say he used to, three hundred years ago he was patron to some, mostly street performers, orphans, and the like. But then he stopped. Every once in a while there are whispers about someone receiving his blessing but no one really knows if that’s true. The last confirmed blessed disciple was a hundred and fifty years ago, a nice man, well liked with a gift to make others laugh. That was until he bashed in the head of three of his co-workers without warning.

Despite this there were still those that beg to have rage as their patron. There is a faction of the faith who call themselves The Mirthful that claim Rage to be the one true god, lord over all others. They call Rage the Mirthful Messiah or the bringer of miracles. Sometimes Jane will see them on TV proclaiming the end days when the messiah will set everyone free from our fleshy existence.

Most people, Jane included, normally ignore them. They are a crazed cult and other than the occasional goat slaughter they are mostly harmless. Rumors say they used to perform human sacrifice but honestly that was years ago and human sacrifice is both rare and very illegal in the current time. 

This all leads back to the simple point, Rage doesn’t bless people. Especially not sane normal girls like Jane. 

The four-hour drive home is quiet. At some point Jane’s dad puts on a radio station broadcasting the news but then the station starts talking about the new renovations to the temple of light and he quickly turns it off. Neither of them were really in the mood to hear about the gods.

When they pull into the driveway, home at last, Jane unbuckles her seatbelt and goes to open the car door only to realize her Dad hasn’t moved at all. Jane sits back in her seat and waits. A full thirty seconds passes before either of them speaks.

“I just want you to know that I will always love you,” Jane’s Dad says looking over at his daughter. “I know this might seem strange and frightening but a blessing is still a gift and even if yours is, well, unorthodox this could be a good thing.” Jane can’t help but to notice that he seems to be reassuring himself as much as he is reassuring her. “You are my kind, strong, brilliant daughter and I am so proud of you no matter what you do.”

Another few seconds pass in silence. Jane can feel her wrist, still cold, and wonders if the chill will last as long as the mark does.

“I think,” Jane says slowly, carefully choosing her words. “I think I’m going to hide it. Just to be safe.” She doesn’t explain what exactly she’ll be safe from but her dad nods anyway.

“If that’s your decision I respect it.”

They both sit in the car for another second before getting out. As dramatic and new as this development is life still has to go on and they can’t spend too long dwelling over things they can’t change.

Later that night as she lies in her bed, sleep eludes her. Too many thoughts buzzing around and when she closes her eyes she sees dark purple eyes, blindingly white bones, and a sharp toothed smile. It’ll be hours before she will fall asleep and even when she finally succumbs to her slumber, it is not a peaceful one.

***

Returning to school Jane finds herself incredibly grateful that Washington weather is cool enough that she can get away with wearing a sweater during the spring. 

Upon her arrival at school she is quickly bombarded with students asking her whom her patron ended up being. She informs them all that there was a mistake and she’s not blessed after all and gives a fake look of mild disappointment that she had practiced in her mirror that morning.

Of course the mark of Rage is still on her wrist but hidden by her sweater sleeve and a few hemp bracelets she managed to scrounge up.

By the time she is in her study period, a time she has right after lunch, almost the whole school knows. Lunch had been a little lonely as apparently the “friends” she had made weren’t very interested in her now that she wasn’t blessed, but Jane tried not to let that bother her. Better to have them leave her because she’s boring than to have them scared off due to her new patron.

Jane decides to spend her study period in the library. Because of the nice weather most kids are outside at the picnic benches leaving the library quiet and almost empty. Jane is pouring over her pre-algebra when the scraping sound of a chair being pulled out and the thump of a body hitting the seat steals her attention.

The new girl is sitting across from her, her elbows on the table and her chin resting on her hand. Roxy had transferred to the school right after the winter break, big news in such a small school, so Jane knew her name but had never really spoken to her before. 

“Hi!” The other girl greets. She’s smacking illegal gum, her shirt is slipping to the side revealing a bright pink bra strap, and she gives her cheerful hello in a voice a little too loud for their current environment. Jane has absolutely no idea why the girl is talking to her but gosh darn if she isn’t going to be polite enough to return a greeting.

“Hi.”

The other girl beams at her before sticking out a hand for Jane to shake. 

“I’m Roxy! You’re Jane right?”

“Yes, can I help you?” Jane replies as she watches Roxy blow a bubble in her gum only to have it break apart with a loud ‘pop’.

“That you can Janey. So I hear you’re the talk of the town gettin’ blessed and all that,” Roxy lazily waves her hand in the air in a motion that Jane assumed is supposed to encompass ‘all that’.

Jane pulls back on the mask she’s been wearing all day. “No sorry, it turns out it was fluke. I’m not blessed after all.” She gives Roxy a little shrug as if to say ‘oh well’. The other girl keeps looking at Jane squinting her eyes and pursing her lips as if Jane is an equation she doesn’t understand. After a few awkward seconds Roxy removes her chin from her hands and her elbows from the table, slouching lazily back in the chair. 

“Bullshit.”

Jane freezes for a moment then hurries to compose herself. “What?” she asks trying her best not to allow any emotion to creep into her voice.

Roxy gives a lazy grin as if she has just won the award for the most smug seventh grader.

“I call bullshit. You leave for your thirteenth b-day to figure out if you have a patron and come back saying you don’t while conveniently wearing long sleeves that cover your wrists? There is no way that is just a coincidence. So what I think is that you aren’t happy with your patron and plan on just ignoring the blessing all together.”

Jane panics not knowing if she should continue to deny or maybe just walk away and hope the other girl will let it go. She can’t believe she had been figured out so quickly. Roxy’s voice interrupts her little crisis.

“No really, I just want to know.” Roxy’s voice in kinder now, reassuring and her smile is more sweet than smug. “Look let’s make a deal, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Before Jane can even ask what thank means Roxy swings her leg up onto the table, leaning so far back that Jane worries she could fall any moment. Roxy shakes her foot and a small anklet with a metal charm on it gives a ‘clink’. Looking closer Jane seen the sign of Void carved into the charm. 

“Miss Lalonde feet off the table!” The librarian barks.

“Yes ma’am.” Is Roxy’s response as she swings her leg back down and scoots her chair forward so that she can lean over the table toward Jane. “So?” Roxy’s tone is kind of subdued and whining, like she’s trying to whisper but isn’t quite sure how.

Jane sighs. It’s more for dramatics than anything else, sure she’s still nervous about showing that her patron is He Who Is Rage but she doesn’t mind as much showing it to Roxy. She may have just met the other girl but she likes her, she seems to be a genuinely nice person and seems actually interested in Jane. 

“I suppose fair is fair,” Jane says as she pushes up her sweater sleeve and reveals her wrist.

“Oh, wow.” Roxy traces the pattern in slight awe. “I thought you had doom or something, but no this is way cooler. Literally!”

Jane can’t help but snort at the bad joke. “I’ve been hoping that the temperature thing will wear off but it looks like it’s going to stay on as long as the mark.”

“Weird,” Roxy mumbles. Then suddenly with out warning Roxy jerks herself back to sitting perfectly upright in her seat. “Don’t worry Janey Jane. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want anyone to know. I’ll be Miss Zupperlips over here.”

“Don’t you mean Zipperlips?” Jane asks.

“Naw, I’m pretty sure the phrase is zupperlips,” Roxy replies winking. “Now enough about boring religion and onto the important stuff.” She leans forward, a very serious look on her face. “Which boys do you think are cute?”

By the end of study period both of them are cracking up so much that the librarian asks them to leave. Jane leaves the library with a new BFFsie and a mood so good that she almost forgets about the blessing and the symbol that marks her arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again let me know if I make any mistakes. Dialogue is difficult but part of the reason I wrote this is so that I can work on my skills in writing it.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to let me know of any spelling or grammar mistakes I missed (You can also tell me if you liked it, that'd be pretty cool of you)


End file.
